Faust77:
Op I sent you a mail.....i would like to know more about this.

No probs. Will respond later today.

rosstiti:


Unfortunately, your moderators have made this site such that when you post links to sources your account gets banned automatically and the post deleted. They are utterly useless.

I will try to post further information without links to see if the posts are allowed to remain.

Oga Rossikki, your passion for Nigeria, Africa and the black race is admirable and second to none, I’ve not seen anyone on here exhibit so much energy whether it’s showcasing and trying to inform people about Africa’s glorious past like you are doing now and viciously attacking those who show ignorance, denigrate the culture or sometimes disagree with your submissions..

Respect sir, use of the talking drums and other forms of instrument to communicate over a distance is well documented but....I don’t believe that this communication could be sustained or feasible over the distance that you mentioned....160km?? I disagree. I think talking drums under good atmospheric conditions are effective not over 16km. I doubt at even this distance, the message would be received or interpreted correctly.

While I don’t dispute the the use of the talking drums to pass messages, I think the range of this communication has been grossly exaggerated. Imagine a sound/message received at about 160km !!. The impact of such a sound at the source! Even with the skill of the drummer, weather conditions like winds and it’s direction...160km!

Igbos use a variety of instruments to pass messages: Ekwe as you mentioned, Ogene and the Oja. Oja is more piercing but I doubt it would travel up to 15 miles in the dead of night with the most clement of wind and other weather conditions.

KosiGee:


Oga Rossikki, your passion for Nigeria, Africa and the black race is admirable and second to none, I’ve not seen anyone on here exhibit so much energy whether it’s showcasing and trying to inform people about Africa’s glorious past like you are doing now and viciously attacking those who show ignorance, denigrate the culture or sometimes disagree with your submissions..

Respect sir, use of the talking drums and other forms of instrument to communicate over a distance is well documented but....I don’t believe that this communication could be sustained or feasible over the distance that you mentioned....160km?? I disagree. I think talking drums under good atmospheric conditions are effective not over 16km. I doubt at even this distance, the message would be received or interpreted correctly.

While I don’t dispute the the use of the talking drums to pass messages, I think the range of this communication has been grossly exaggerated. Imagine a sound/message received at about 160km !!. The impact of such a sound at the source! Even with the skill of the drummer, weather conditions like winds and it’s direction...160km!

Igbos use a variety of instruments to pass messages: Ekwe as you mentioned, Ogene and the Oja. Oja is more piercing but I doubt it would travel up to 15 miles in the dead of night with the most clement of wind and other weather conditions.

My brother, thanks for your kind words. Regarding the talking drum technology, this is what is stated by researchers. You can Google it yourself. I tried to post the links, but this forum doesn't accept it.

I was equally as astonished as you when I read the studies stating the distance reached. I mean, it's nearly the distance from Lagos to Benin!

But I have no doubt it's true, because this is based on solid research by proper scholars. Perhaps they put something in the drum that gave it extraordinary resonance or sonic power of some sort.

I will see if I can get more details on how exactly it worked.

Rosskivvyy:


Actually yes. It's a common occurrence when you suffer military defeat. Good modern examples are Iraq and Libya. These were functional, prosperous societies, until a a stronger military power, claiming superior civilization and moral values invaded, destroyed, and dismantled their systems, such that today, they have degenerated to Hobbesian, dystopian hellholes in endless cycles of violence, bombings, corruption, and poverty.



Your problem is clearly a failure to understand what this thread is all about.

Can someone please explain it to him?

He seems to lack the capacity to grasp what we're on about.

You are simply delusional otherwise you won't be arguing what is visible to the blind and audible to the deaf.

Africa that couldn't document their history SMH.

Starcrest1:


You are simply delusional otherwise you won't be arguing what is visible to the blind and audible to the deaf.

Africa that couldn't document their history SMH.

Ever heard of the Timbuktu Manuscripts? Or the Ajami scripts? Or the Meroitic scripts? Or the Ethiopic scripts? The Egyptian hieroglyphs?

There are literally MILLIONS of volumes of recorded African history available. You've not been told the truth about African history. It's time you acknowledged that.

People derailing this thread seem to be doing it purposely.
Don't be discouraged.
We r reading up.
A few things stated may be controversial don't mean it didn't exist.
Saddening to know that these guys r brain dead n feel our ancestors had nothing to offer.
Only a mad person will not want to know about his history. U could mail us the links too if ok by you.
Cheers.

Rosskivvyy:


Ever heared of the Timbuktu Manuscripts? Or the Ajami scripts? Or the Meroitic scripts? Or the Ethiopic scripts? The Egyptian hieroglyphs? There are literally MILLIONS of volumes of recorded African history available. You've not been told the truth about African history. It's time you acknowledged that.

Oga those things are mostly written in Arabic which is alien to Africa. Show me The history of Africa written in pure African system of writing.

punisha:
People derailing this thread seem to be doing it purposely.
Don't be discouraged.
We r reading up.
A few things stated may be controversial don't mean it didn't exist.
Saddening to know that these guys r brain dead n feel our ancestors had nothing to offer.
Only a mad person will not want to know about his history. U could mail us the links too if ok by you.
Cheers.

Thanks bro. Will see if I can do that.

Starcrest1:


Oga those things are mostly written in Arabic which is alien to Africa. Show me The history of Africa written in pure African system of writing.

Arabic is not alien to Africa. Arabic is a derivative script of African hieroglyphs.

In fact, as Africans INVENTED writing, no script on earth can justifiably be considered "alien" to Africa.

How can children be 'alien' to their parents?

Africa is the CRADLE of civilization.

Every useful human endeavor you see today is directly traceable to ancient African ingenuity.

Black man know yourself
Be confident
Our ancestors
Civilized this world

Black man know yourself
Don't forget your past
Black man know yourself
Don't forget your past

- Femi Kuti

So what's the op saying? We should go back to 16th century abi. Ode op

Rosskivvyy:


That's it. I'm done with you. No further discussion. Bye.

It is utterly disgusting that some people read, NOT to learn, but to argue.

Sad indeed!

rosstiti:
Note: This forum has turned USELESS for posting information with links. The minute you post links your account is banned automatically, and the post is deleted, so I cannot post the links to all this information.

Someone get the mods to stop acting like bushmen, and allow links to be posted on this forum, for proper dissemination and verification of information.

COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY (ctd.)

If you are a Yoruba man, and don't believe this about TALKING DRUMS, go to your village and ask the elders. They will even tell you more things you had no idea about.

''Niger-Congo languages are tonal in nature. Talking drums exploit the tonal aspect of Niger-Congo languages to convey very complicated messages. Talking drums can send messages 15 to 25 miles (40 km). Bulu, a Bantu language, can be drummed as well as spoken. In a Bulu village, each individual had a unique drum signature. A message could be sent to an individual by drumming his drum signature. It has been noted that a message can be sent 100 miles (160 km) from village to village within two hours or less using a talking drum.''

- wiki


Igbos used the ekwe for similar purposes, ''This is a cylindrical shaped drum, made out of wood (usually a tree trunk) and hollow inside. It has rectangular cavity slits and was used for communication over long distances. It can produce rhythms to connote anything from celebration to emergencies.''


That is why today in rural Igboland, the mobile phone is called ''ekwe nti' meaning ''the ekwe of the ear''.

Leave aside physical instruments, do you realise that precolonial Nigerians used TELEPATHY to communicate? This was a science for which one was trained to build thoughts and transfer them from their belly region to the belly of the recipient. Again, go and ask your elders in your village, and they will confirm this. This technology was known all over West Africa, and was used extensively hundreds of years ago.

A study of this African technology was done on the San people of southern Africa, foolishly termed the 'Bushmen' by western historians.

''...The African Bushmen communicate in a similar way. As anthropologist Bradford Keeney discovered, the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert believe that all living creatures are connected by a silver stream of energy that extends from one belly button to another. The Bushmen use these horizontal “lines” like telephone wires to send and receive telepathic messages.'' Keeney, Ropes to God, 42.


In Ropes to God: Experiencing the Bushman Spiritual Universe, Keeney includes a Bushman’s description of this type of telepathy:

''You cannot send a thought to another person without first being filled with heightened emotion. . . . In this state you mix your thought, message or directive with your intensified feeling and make the thought a pure feeling. It is concentrated in your belly where the intensity of your feeling escalates to a point where it can no longer be held. Then it is released along the line coming out of your belly and directed to another person’s belly. They immediately respond when you communicate in this way. It may seem like we send our thoughts, but we are actually sending our feelings. Not weak, arbitrary feelings, but intense, almost overwhelming feelings. . . . A thought, message or request is changed into a feeling. . . . The feeling is the carrier.''

CTD.

no pictures to back ur trash up. Africa has been primitive and even in this 21st century we look like a stone age continent with nothing to show.

thundafire:
no pictures to back ur trash up. Africa has been primitive and even in this 21st century we look like a stone age continent with nothing to show.

Gold is your friend, why don’t you search it up and I don’t understand why your so angry and hateful towards africa what did it do to you, any good news from Africa and you automatically have to compare to something or someone else, f9 no reason over then to downgrade Africa in the eyes of others, just search ekwe on google see what pops up and search talking drum communication and see what you get from Wikipedia. If you actually cared you would do the research yourself and not be lamenting about something

rosstiti:
Note: This forum has turned USELESS for posting information with links. The minute you post links your account is banned automatically, and the post is deleted, so I cannot post the links to all this information.

Someone get the mods to stop acting like bushmen, and allow links to be posted on this forum, for proper dissemination and verification of information.

COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY (ctd.)

If you are a Yoruba man, and don't believe this about TALKING DRUMS, go to your village and ask the elders. They will even tell you more things you had no idea about.

''Niger-Congo languages are tonal in nature. Talking drums exploit the tonal aspect of Niger-Congo languages to convey very complicated messages. Talking drums can send messages 15 to 25 miles (40 km). Bulu, a Bantu language, can be drummed as well as spoken. In a Bulu village, each individual had a unique drum signature. A message could be sent to an individual by drumming his drum signature. It has been noted that a message can be sent 100 miles (160 km) from village to village within two hours or less using a talking drum.''

- wiki


Igbos used the ekwe for similar purposes, ''This is a cylindrical shaped drum, made out of wood (usually a tree trunk) and hollow inside. It has rectangular cavity slits and was used for communication over long distances. It can produce rhythms to connote anything from celebration to emergencies.''


That is why today in rural Igboland, the mobile phone is called ''ekwe nti' meaning ''the ekwe of the ear''.

Leave aside physical instruments, do you realise that precolonial Nigerians used TELEPATHY to communicate? This was a science for which one was trained to build thoughts and transfer them from their belly region to the belly of the recipient. Again, go and ask your elders in your village, and they will confirm this. This technology was known all over West Africa, and was used extensively hundreds of years ago.

A study of this African technology was done on the San people of southern Africa, foolishly termed the 'Bushmen' by western historians.

''...The African Bushmen communicate in a similar way. As anthropologist Bradford Keeney discovered, the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert believe that all living creatures are connected by a silver stream of energy that extends from one belly button to another. The Bushmen use these horizontal “lines” like telephone wires to send and receive telepathic messages.'' Keeney, Ropes to God, 42.


In Ropes to God: Experiencing the Bushman Spiritual Universe, Keeney includes a Bushman’s description of this type of telepathy:

''You cannot send a thought to another person without first being filled with heightened emotion. . . . In this state you mix your thought, message or directive with your intensified feeling and make the thought a pure feeling. It is concentrated in your belly where the intensity of your feeling escalates to a point where it can no longer be held. Then it is released along the line coming out of your belly and directed to another person’s belly. They immediately respond when you communicate in this way. It may seem like we send our thoughts, but we are actually sending our feelings. Not weak, arbitrary feelings, but intense, almost overwhelming feelings. . . . A thought, message or request is changed into a feeling. . . . The feeling is the carrier.''

CTD.

Out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water

Rosskivvyy, rosstiti

You seem to be wasting to much time highlighting technology that existed in pre-colonial Africa and Nigeria at large. Don't forget that the crux of our argument which led you to open this thread was that the technologies were at no level superior to those of the Europeans who colonized us. No one said we lacked technology; even the early men invented fire from flint stones. So it's common knowledge that every group of people or society had a form of technology.
What you seemed to push was that our fledgling technology was destroyed by the Europeans when they came because they saw it as a threat and were amazed at its superiority. That's what is left to be proven by you.
On the subject of drums, I hope you're aware that even till now, communication by drumming is still faster than the mobile telephony we have embraced. That's because it takes between 5 to 20 seconds for a call to be established, while drumming is instantaneously travelling at 330m/s. But I doubt you or anyone will agree if anyone was to ask you to drop your phone and take a drum instead. The reasons are obvious. Same was it for telegraphy, post and other forms of communication the Europeans had when they came to Africa.
Same also goes to our traditional medicine. Despite extensive works done on them, we have not been able to put them on equal pedestal with western medicine. Instead, fakes and adulteration have taken over that branch. I'm sure you can't blame the British for that.
Note that at no time did the British force their medicines or even religion on us. If you need information on how we came to embrace some of their ways and means, I'll suggest you dig into your study as you have done for your subject presently.

olabolaji:
So what's the op saying? We should go back to 16th century abi. Ode op

Use your brain. It's not there for decoration. Read the academic studies I posted on the need to reinvigorate our latent indigenous technological capacities to build a genuine indigenous industrial revolution.

There are some academic papers I posted on the previous page which explained how this can be done.

Agbegbaorogboye:
Rosskivvyy, rosstiti

You seem to be wasting to much time highlighting technology that existed in pre-colonial Africa and Nigeria at large. Don't forget that the crux of our argument which led you to open this thread was that the technologies were at no level superior to those of the Europeans who colonized us. No one said we lacked technology; even the early men invented fire from flint stones. So it's common knowledge that every group of people or society had a form of technology.
What you seemed to push was that our fledgling technology was destroyed by the Europeans when they came because they saw it as a threat and were amazed at its superiority. That's what is left to be proven by you.
On the subject of drums, I hope you're aware that even till now, communication by drumming is still faster than the mobile telephony we have embraced. That's because it takes between 5 to 20 seconds for a call to be established, while drumming is instantaneously travelling at 330m/s. But I doubt you or anyone will agree if anyone was to ask you to drop your phone and take a drum instead. The reasons are obvious. Same was it for telegraphy, post and other forms of communication the Europeans had when they came to Africa.
Same also goes to our traditional medicine. Despite extensive works done on them, we have not been able to put them on equal pedestal with western medicine. Instead, fakes and adulteration have taken over that branch. I'm sure you can't blame the British for that.
Note that at no time did the British force their medicines or even religion on us. If you need information on how we came to embrace some of their ways and means, I'll suggest you dig into your study as you have done for your subject presently.

I'm glad you've taken on a more mature approach to this topic, as expected.

Did you read the academic papers I posted on the previous page regarding the need to evolve a genuine indigenous industrial revolution based on our own technological heritage? I fully support the findings of that paper. I suggest you read it again to see the points made.

I don't subscribe to abandoning our traditional medIcine just because we've not had a government serious enough to elevate it like the Chinese did theirs. Why give up just like that? I'm surprised you suggested that. We must continue to develop that field until it reaches its appropriate place in our health system. It has shown to be more effective than western medicine on several occasions, as shown by the testimony of the great Dr Adeoye Lambo.

Also, the British DID force us to abandon our traditional religions.

They did this by insisting that any entrants to their missionary schools must abandon their traditional faiths and become CHRISTIAN.

They would baptize you, and issue you with a christian or English name, before you could enrol. This was enforced particularly strictly in Igboland, whose people they saw as fiercely independent, and thus requiring total transformation. This is why almost every Igbo person you see today has a christian or English name affixed to his or her native name.

They did not tolerate any person attending the missionary schools who was an African religionist. And they reinforced this rejection by wildly exaggerating or fabricating tales of traditional barbarism. So one or two villages engaging in twin infanticide, translated to ''Igbos killed their twins'', etc etc.

When a new power comes in and seizes the economic resources of your territory, and insists that the only way to access those resources is by attending his schools, speaking and writing his language, and adopting his religion, it amounts to subtle coercion to abandon your old ways, your old philosophies, your old technologies, your old educational systems, and adopt his.

And that is precisely what happened.

Upward mobility became dependent on trashing and dumping your own heritage, and adopting that of the colonizer.

The colonialists did not have this policy in the north. They accepted Islam was the religion there. The 18th century jihadists had essentially done their work for them, of disconnecting Africans from their powerful heritage, so they were happy with Islamic prevalence in the north.

But they did not tolerate African religion and philosophies practiced in the south, and insisted on christianization and westernization. That is why majority of southern Nigerians are christians today who look down on their traditional heritage, and regard it as 'backward, heathen, uncivilized' etc.

It was a process of deliberate social engineering by the British that was highly effective.

.
.

GLASS WAS MANUFACTURED IN NIGERIA CENTURIES BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF EUROPEANS, SAYS NEW EVIDENCE

Chemical analysis of beads found at a site in Nigeria revels a composition entirely unique to the region


Josh Gabbatiss

Science Correspondent Independent Newspaper, UK



Glass was produced in sub-Saharan Africa long before Europeans arrived, according to scientists studying beads found in Nigeria.

Chemical analysis of glass found at a Nigerian archaeological site revealed a distinct composition entirely unique to the region.

The finding contradicts a long-held assumption that glass was brought to sub-Saharan Africa by traders from the Mediterranean or the Middle East.

Igbo Olokun, the site where the beads were discovered, is in the north of an ancient city and regional centre of power called Ile-Ife – the ancestral home of West Africa’s Yoruba people.



“This area has been recognised as a glass-working workshop for more than a century,” said Dr Abidemi Babatunde Babalola, an anthropologist at Harvard University who led the research project.

The abundance of glass beads found in Ile-Ife has been associated with the many shrines and sculptures historically located there – however, archaeologists have presumed they were evidence of trade with distant nations.

“The glass-encrusted containers and beads that have been uncovered there were viewed for many years as evidence that imported glass was remelted and reworked,” said Dr Babalola.

Now, the beads and glass working debris found and analysed by Dr Babalola and his collaborators appear to resolve the matter.

“The Igbo Olokun excavations have provided that evidence,” Babalola said.

Of the 12,000 glass beads found at the site, the researchers analysed 52 and found none matched the composition of glass produced anywhere else on earth.

Two groups of glass were found at Igbo Olokun, one with high levels of lime and alumina, and one with low levels of lime and high levels of alumina.

Both were identified as unique to the region, and Dr Babalola and his team noted their composition reflected the local geology and raw materials that were available.

Notably, the glass found at Igbo Olokun was also dated to between the 1100s and 1500s, centuries before Europeans established trade networks in West Africa.

“We are now confident beyond reasonable doubt that both the high lime-high alumina and low lime, high alumina groups of glass represent a glass produced in early Ile-Ife using local recipes, raw materials and technology,” wrote the researchers in their paper documenting the findings.

Their results are published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

The occurrence of similar beads in other West African societies, as revealed by other archaeological excavations, indicated the glass produced at Igbo Olokun was part of a wider regional trading network.

Source - The Independent Newspaper, UK

rosstiti:
Note: This forum has turned USELESS for posting information with links. The minute you post links your account is banned automatically, and the post is deleted, so I cannot post the links to all this information.

Someone get the mods to stop acting like bushmen, and allow links to be posted on this forum, for proper dissemination and verification of information.

COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY (ctd.)

If you are a Yoruba man, and don't believe this about TALKING DRUMS, go to your village and ask the elders. They will even tell you more things you had no idea about.

''Niger-Congo languages are tonal in nature. Talking drums exploit the tonal aspect of Niger-Congo languages to convey very complicated messages. Talking drums can send messages 15 to 25 miles (40 km). Bulu, a Bantu language, can be drummed as well as spoken. In a Bulu village, each individual had a unique drum signature. A message could be sent to an individual by drumming his drum signature. It has been noted that a message can be sent 100 miles (160 km) from village to village within two hours or less using a talking drum.''

- wiki


Igbos used the ekwe for similar purposes, ''This is a cylindrical shaped drum, made out of wood (usually a tree trunk) and hollow inside. It has rectangular cavity slits and was used for communication over long distances. It can produce rhythms to connote anything from celebration to emergencies.''


That is why today in rural Igboland, the mobile phone is called ''ekwe nti' meaning ''the ekwe of the ear''.

Leave aside physical instruments, do you realise that precolonial Nigerians used TELEPATHY to communicate? This was a science for which one was trained to build thoughts and transfer them from their belly region to the belly of the recipient. Again, go and ask your elders in your village, and they will confirm this. This technology was known all over West Africa, and was used extensively hundreds of years ago.

A study of this African technology was done on the San people of southern Africa, foolishly termed the 'Bushmen' by western historians.

''...The African Bushmen communicate in a similar way. As anthropologist Bradford Keeney discovered, the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert believe that all living creatures are connected by a silver stream of energy that extends from one belly button to another. The Bushmen use these horizontal “lines” like telephone wires to send and receive telepathic messages.'' Keeney, Ropes to God, 42.


In Ropes to God: Experiencing the Bushman Spiritual Universe, Keeney includes a Bushman’s description of this type of telepathy:

''You cannot send a thought to another person without first being filled with heightened emotion. . . . In this state you mix your thought, message or directive with your intensified feeling and make the thought a pure feeling. It is concentrated in your belly where the intensity of your feeling escalates to a point where it can no longer be held. Then it is released along the line coming out of your belly and directed to another person’s belly. They immediately respond when you communicate in this way. It may seem like we send our thoughts, but we are actually sending our feelings. Not weak, arbitrary feelings, but intense, almost overwhelming feelings. . . . A thought, message or request is changed into a feeling. . . . The feeling is the carrier.''

CTD.

The feeling message thing, I can confirm. You must be pure minded to communicate this way; that much is true.

I realized this on my own, doing researches with myself. But I also realized the after effect of this may be depressing if you are alone in this emotional state.

Ifakorinmi:



The feeling message thing, I can confirm. You must be pure minded to communicate this way; that much is true.

I realized this on my own, doing researches with myself. But I also realized the after effect of this may be depressing if you are alone in this emotional state.

That makes sense. It must be really tasking on the human system to engage in such telepathic activity without the requisite emotional support during and after the event. I imagine our ancestors overcame this by ritual incantations of some sort, or by meditation, following the communication sessions.

Rosskivvyy:


That makes sense. It must be really tasking on the human system to engage in such telepathic activity without the requisite emotional support during and after the event. I imagine our ancestors overcame this by ritual incantations of some sort, or by meditation, following the communication sessions.

I’ll like to think it was always done in group. I believe this method of communication goes through spirit mediums to reach the targeted audience.

This method is also used by priestesses to communicate with their goddesses. It’s also used in India, Greece and Northern Europe I think. Native Americans are masters too in this. Basically, high emotional state is either a way to communicate or be hurt or a result of being hurt. And some people perform magic in such state.

.
.
IN THE 17th CENTURY, PORTUGAL BANNED THE IMPORTATION OF NIGERIAN MANUFACTURED SOAP, TO PROTECT HER LOCAL INDUSTRIES

This story is a stunning opposite of the type of news we hear today, where it is African countries who try to ban imports of foreign manufactured goods to protect their local industries.

In the 17th century, soap was manufactured in Nigeria on an industrial scale, and exported across the world, especially to Europe, as people on that continent, emerging from their Dark Ages and into the Renaissance, slowly came to realise the importance of bathing and washing.

This led to very high demand for imported manufactured soap and soap products, since Portugal lacked any meaningful soap manufacturing industry, and lacked the technical know-how to manufacture this important product.

They turned to the people of present day NIGERIA, to provide them with this much needed manufactured product, as the industry was flourishing in that part of the world.

This trade dominance by Nigeria eventually became such a threat to the Portuguese economy that the Portuguese leaders place an outright BAN on Nigerian and West African manufactured soap products in order to encourage local production, protect her local industries, and reduce unemployment in Portugal.

According to researchers:

''The forest people of Nigeria are believed to have developed the soap production industry. Soap production was on such a large scale in the 17th century that Portugal had to ban the importation of West African soap in order to protect their soap-boiling industry.''

The indigenous techniques in soap making were produced in several communities through the use of materials such as ashes, palm oil, cocoa pods and water. It was an industry worked mainly by women. In addition, black soap was believed to be of high medicinal value especially among the Yoruba and Igbo communities.''


Source - AN OVERVIEW OF INDIGENOUS INDUSTRIES IN NIGERIA, by Victor Eshameh, Gifted Minds Writers Firm, Research Dept, 2016

Ifakorinmi:


I’ll like to think it was always done in group. I believe this method of communication goes through spirit mediums to reach the targeted audience.

This method is also used by priestesses to communicate with their goddesses. It’s also used in India, Greece and Northern Europe I think. Native Americans are masters too in this. Basically, high emotional state is either a way to communicate or be hurt or a result of being hurt. And some people perform magic in such state.

Could it be that this is what ''prayer'' is really meant to be in order to be effective, as opposed to this 'casual conversation with God' type of communication the Europeans told us is 'prayer' in the christian religion?

Could it be that the reason why most of our prayers go unanswered, is that we are not doing it the right way, with deep emotional involvement and heavy concentration?

Agbegbaorogboye:
Rosskivvyy, rosstiti

You seem to be wasting to much time highlighting technology that existed in pre-colonial Africa and Nigeria at large. Don't forget that the crux of our argument which led you to open this thread was that the technologies were at no level superior to those of the Europeans who colonized us. No one said we lacked technology; even the early men invented fire from flint stones. So it's common knowledge that every group of people or society had a form of technology.
What you seemed to push was that our fledgling technology was destroyed by the Europeans when they came because they saw it as a threat and were amazed at its superiority. That's what is left to be proven by you.

Yes they DID see Nigerian industrialization as a huge threat, and they discouraged it big time.

Excerpts:

''A major theme in African historical studies is the impact of colonialism on indigenous African arts, crafts and industries. There is no doubt, whatsoever, that colonialism impacted negatively on indigenous African arts, crafts and industries in terms of reduction of their local production in different African societies within the colonial situation.

With regard to cloth-weaving, the decline of the industry is often attributed to mainly the importation of cheap European factory manufactured cloth and discouragement from colonial administrators.

With particular regard to cloth weaving, scholars often attribute this negative impact mainly to the importation of cheap European and Asian factory manufactured cloth and deliberate discouragement by colonial administrators.

One of the most popular African scholars that held this position is Walter Rodney in his book: How Europe Undeveloped Africa

According to Walter Rodney, when European cloth became dominant on the African market, it meant African producers were cut off from increasing demand for their product. He argued that as a consequence of this situation, crafts producers either abandoned their tasks in the face of cheap available European cloth, or they continued on the same small hand work instrument to create styles and pieces in localized markets.

On his part, Bonat, who studied the decline of indigenous industries in Zaria Province of Nigeria, argued that the British Colonial Administration in Nigeria deliberately discouraged the indigenous industries, including cloth weaving, in the area through taxation, competition, legislation, structural changes in the economy as well as a dependent educational system.

Bonat argued further that the destruction of the indigenous industries was necessary for the British Colonial Administration because their existence was diametrically opposed to the aims of British colonialism. According to him, the aims of British colonialism included tapping available raw materials, capturing and monopolizing the local market for British goods and creating avenues for British capital.''

Source: Colonialism and the Decline of Indigenous African Industries: The Example of Cloth-Weaving in Esanland, Edo State, Nigeria, by Dr Julius O. Unumen, Department of History and International Studies, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Edo State, Nigeria

Rosskivvyy:


Could it be that this is what ''prayer'' is really meant to be in order to be effective, as opposed to this 'casual conversation with God' type of communication the Europeans told us is 'prayer' in the christian religion?

Could it be that the reason why most of our prayers go unanswered, is that we are not doing it the right way, with deep emotional involvement and heavy concentration?

Exactly!!

Native Americans sing some soulful songs in order to speak to their Goddess mother. Every Orisha has his/her songs. These songs stimulate emotions.

Without that emotional connection, I believe communication becomes vague.

Imagine a computer connecting to internet. A weak connection makes data transfer really slow or impossible. Emotions are how we transfer data. This is why some people’s moods are infectious; transferring emotional data(feelings)

So when prayers are done with weak emotional connection, we may not be transmitting any message at all or transmitting unclear messages.

Emotion is connectivity among humans, and between humans and spirits/angels/god/goddesses.

Ifakorinmi:


Exactly!!

Native Americans sing some soulful songs in order to speak to their Goddess mother. Every Orisha has his/her songs. These songs stimulate emotions.

Without that emotional connection, I believe communication becomes vague.

Imagine a computer connecting to internet. A weak connection makes data transfer really slow or impossible. Emotions are how we transfer data. This is why some people’s moods are infectious; transferring emotional data(feelings)

So when prayers are done with weak emotional connection, we may not be transmitting any message at all or transmitting unclear messages.

Emotion is connectivity among humans, and between humans and spirits/angels/god/goddesses.

I agree 100%.

Let this be a lesson to all of us who pray to God or to the ancestors or deities.

The more I read this thread, the more I see why the whites were so desperate to convince us that we were nothing, and to abandon our religions, abandon our languages, abandon our self-belief, despise our history, despise our skin colour, shun our ancestors, belittle their achievements, and to see them, the whites, as our 'saviours'.

It was literally the only way they could gain the advantages over us which they sought. Particularly the economic advantages, which they enjoy till today.

Military conquest alone wouldn't have cut it.

They needed to conquer our minds as well, so that we could operate in their interests, even when they weren't present.

But they forget that there is a Creator who watches everything, and who will ensure that what is broken will be made whole again, one way or the other.

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AMERICAN SCHOLARS ADMIT THAT COLONIALISM STALLED AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT AND INDUSTRIALIZATION

''The long term economic impact of European development held some very negative consequences for Africa also. The infrastructure that was developed was designed to exploit the natural resources of the colonies.

Also, the technological and industrial development that had been occurring in Africa was stalled by the imposition of colonialism.

Prior to the partition of Africa, local production provided Africans with a wide variety of consumer goods.

The policies of colonialism forced the demise of African industry and created a reliance on imported goods from Europe.

Had native industry been encouraged and cultivated by the colonizing powers, Africa would probably be in a much better economic and technological position today.

Other consequences of colonialism include the destruction of trans - African trade and cooperation.

Prior to the partition of Africa, the continent had become increasingly integrated economically, with trade occurring north - south and east -west.

The policies of the governing powers redirected all African trade to the international export market.

Thus today, there is little in the way of inter - African trade, and the pattern of economic dependence continues.

The imposition of colonialism on the continent of Africa occurred for many reasons, not the least of which was economic.

Prior to this development, Africa was advancing and progressing economically and politically.

Colonialism encouraged this development in some areas, but in many others severely retar.ded the normal progress of the continent.

Had colonialism never been imposed on Africa, its development would be significantly different and many of the problems that plague it today would not exist.''

Source - The Impact of Colonialism on African Economic Development, By Joshua Dwayne Settles, University of Tennessee - Knoxville

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NIGERIAN MEDICINE WAS SUPERIOR TO WESTERN MEDICINE BEFORE COLONISATION, Say US Researchers


''Many treatments we use today were employed by several ancient peoples throughout Africa. Before the European invasion of Africa, medicine in what is now Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa, to name just a few places, was more advanced than medicine in Europe.

Some of these practices were the use of plants with salicylic acid for pain (as in aspirin), kaolin for diarrhea (as in Kaopectate), and extracts that were confirmed in the 20th century to kill Gram positive bacteria.

Other plants used had anticancer properties, caused abortion and treated malaria — and these have been shown to be as effective as many modern-day Western treatments.

Furthermore, Africans discovered ouabain, capsicum, physostigmine and reserpine.

Medical procedures performed in ancient Africa before they were performed in Europe include vaccination, autopsy, limb traction and broken bone setting, bullet removal, brain surgery, skin grafting, filling of dental cavities, installation of false teeth, what is now known as Caesarean section, anesthesia and tissue cauterization.

In addition, African cultures performed surgeries under antiseptic conditions universally when this concept was only emerging in Europe.''

Source - Sydella Blatch, Assistant Professor of Biology at Stevenson University, and member, American Society For Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

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SCIENTISTS MARVEL AT PRE-COLONIAL NIGERIAN ENGINEERING PROWESS


''The African landscape is dotted with the remnants of walled enclosures of various dimensions in Southern Africa and West Africa.

The irrigation terraces of Gwoza and Yil Ngas, Nigeria, and the earthworks of Benin are major testimonies to the engineering activities of ancient West Africans.

The Benin earthworks have been estimated about 10,000 miles long by the archeologist Patrick Darling.

The totality of all the irrigation terrace lines or contours in Gwoza, northeast Nigeria, may be on the order of 20,000 miles, according to researchers such as White and Gwimbe, who have done extensive work on this subject.

Various architectural styles emerged in the region with a propensity for sun dried clay in the West African Sahelian region and East Africa. Obelisks, stelae, sphinxes, flat topped and peaked pyramids, walled enclosures called zimbabwes, sculptured temples, terraces and beehive, circular and rectangular dwellings, are among the wide variety of engineered structures of Africa.''

Source: History of Science Society, The History of Science in Non-Western Traditions: Africa (Website)


THE AFRICAN QUEEN

SOMETIMES the biggest things can be the hardest to find. How else do you explain the failure of generations of Nigerian and European archaeologists to spot Sungbo’s Eredo, the ramparts of a thousand-year-old kingdom not an hour’s drive from Lagos.

They are very big: the earth wall and ditch are 160 kilometres long and in places tower seven storeys high, complete with guardhouses, moats and garrison barracks. They enclose an area the size of Greater London, or 30 times bigger than Manhattan.

Patrick Darling of the University of Bornemouth, UK, stumbled upon Sungbo’s Eredo five years ago, when he stopped his car along the Pan African Highway in southern Nigeria and set off on foot into the undergrowth.

What he found that day was the jewel in the African civil engineering crown.

Eredo is the most outstanding example of thousands of ancient city ramparts and boundary embankments and ditches that Darling believes stretch across Nigeria and much of West Africa.

Darling says that tropical landscapes are littered with ancient earthworks that dwarf more famous ancient mega-structures such as the ruins of Great Zimbabwe in southern Africa or the pyramids of Egypt and even compare with the Great Wall of China. He has made it his life’s work to unlock the secrets of these Cinderellas of the archaeological world.

Darling did not, strictly speaking, discover Sungbo’s Eredo. Local African villagers and pilgrims knew about it all along. Eredo means a ditch, and they believe that the earthworks were built for Bilikisu Sungbo, a fabulously wealthy but childless widow who wanted a monument …


Source: Fred Pearce, New Scientist



The Eredo Earthworks needed more earth to be moved during construction than that used for building the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.

It was the biggest city in the world (bigger than Rome and Cairo) during the Middle Ages when it was built.

Source: Swiftalk (Website)

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NSIBIDI - THE GREAT PRE-COLONIAL WRITING SCRIPT OF EASTERN NIGERIA
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THIS would have been the official writing script of Eastern Nigeria today, absent of colonial invasion.

As regional trade boomed, its popularity was spreading like a bushfire in the harmattan, just before the colonial invasion, and it could well have been adopted by neighbouring regions including the Benin Kingdom, and the Yoruba speaking territories of the west...

Novels, Poetry books, History books, Dictionaries, Science textbooks, Maths textbooks, Religious and Philosophical books and treatises, and Regional trade agreements, penned in Nsibidi, would have been written in their thousands, and be widely available today, absent of colonial interruption.

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''Nsibidi is a system of symbols indigenous to what is now southeastern Nigeria that are apparently pictograms, though there have been suggestions that some are logograms or syllabograms.

Early forms appeared on excavated pottery as well as what are most likely ceramic stools and headrests from the Calabar region with a range of dates from at least 400 AD (and possibly earlier), to 1400 AD.

Nsibidi was used to decorate the skin, calabashes, sculptures, and clothing items, as well as to communicate messages on houses.

There are thousands of nsibidi symbols, of which over 500 have been recorded.

They were once taught in school to children.

Many of the signs deal with love affairs; those that deal with warfare and the sacred are kept secret.

Nsibidi is used on wall designs, calabashes, metals (such as bronze), leaves, swords, and tattoos.

It is primarily used today by the Ekpe leopard society (also known as Ngbe or Egbo), a secret society that is found across Cross River State among the Ekoi, Efik, Igbo people, Bahumono and other nearby peoples.

Outside knowledge of Nsibidi came in 1904 when T. D. Maxwell noticed the symbols.

Before the British colonisation of the area, Nsibidi was divided into a sacred version and a public, more decorative version which could be used by women.

Aspects of colonisation such as Western education and Christian doctrine drastically reduced the number of Nsibidi-literate people, leaving the secret society members as some of the last literate in the symbols.

Nsibidi was and is still a means of transmitting Ekpe symbolism.

Nsibidi was transported to Cuba and Haiti via the Atlantic slave trade, where it developed into the anaforuana and veve symbolic scripts.''

Source: Wikipedia